Re-articulating labour in global production networks - the case of street traders in Barcelona

Sep 11, 2026

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The global production network (GPN) approach treats production as relational and includes firm and non-firm actors, as well as state and civil society. Yet GPN analysis emphasizes formal waged labour, leaving precarious self-employed and own-account workers comparatively undertheorised. This paper examines migrant street peddlers (‘manteros’) in Barcelona and their interactions with clothing and footwear GPNs across sourcing, production, branding and retailing. Drawing on labour agency and dis/articulation, it shows processes of simultaneous inclusion and exclusion at GPN margins, revealing agentive strategies that allow workers to re-articulate social, economic and political marginalization.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryPaper Templates

FormatDOCX

Pages29

Reading Time10 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Street vending in Barcelona and precarious livelihoods

Informal work and engagement with GPNs

Research aims and contributions

Re-articulating labour in global production networks: the case of street traders in Barcelona Dr Matthew Alford, Professor Uma Kothari and Dr Laura Pottinger Environment and Planning D (accepted version, 14th June 2019) Abstract The global production network (GPN) approach constitutes a relational theorising of production processes, incorporating firm and non-firm actors, including the state, civil society and labour. Despite renewed attention to labour, GPN analysis focuses predominantly on formal waged work, giving insufficient attention to growing numbers of precarious workers, including self-employed and own-account workers, who are often the most vulnerable and exploited. This is symptomatic of a persistent, unhelpful dichotomy between formal and informal production practices. Consequently, the ability of precarious workers to navigate and challenge the terms of their engagement with GPNs remains little understood. This paper addresses this by examining the everyday practices of migrant street peddlers - ‘manteros’ – and their interaction with clothing and footwear GPNs as they source, produce, brand and retail products on the streets of Barcelona. We develop recent insights from labour agency and dis/articulation perspectives to conceptualise simultaneous processes of inclusion and exclusion taking place at the margins of GPNs. We reveal multiple, agentive strategies adopted by precarious, informal workers and demonstrate how, through their engagements with GPNs, they are able to re-articulate their social, economic and political marginalization. Such insights, we suggest, advance critical understandings of labour in GPN analysis and economic geography. 1. Introduction Street vendors, or ‘manteros’, are a familiar sight in busy tourist areas of Barcelona, along Las Ramblas, the port and the beach. Spreading their blankets on pedestrian walkways upon which they carefully arrange their goods, they sell anything from clothing, sunglasses, bags and belts to passing locals and tourists. Most manteros are from Bangladesh and Senegal, migrants ‘without papers’, for whom Spain is one stop in an often long and extensive migratory journey. Peddling is an illegal activity. Along with their illegal migrant status, this makes them subject to intensive surveillance. As street peddling is a highly visible, public activity much of their time is spent evading the police; being caught incurs a heavy fine and possibly arrest and detention. The life of the mantero is precarious, shaped by racial, class and migrant identities (Bair and Werner 2011; Phillips 2011). Their marginalisation is further entrenched through the kind of economic activity they perform. As street traders, they operate on the margins of more formalised production and retail processes. However, we suggest that while these informal workers have been largely invisible in global production network (GPN) analysis, they encounter, engage with, rework and resist GPNs. As we show in this paper, manteros are able to subtly navigate the precarity of their existence. In part, this is enabled through their appropriation of products from multiple production networks and their ability to connect with their own economic and cultural networks. Additionally, by forging new channels through which products may reach consumers, they play a critical role in extending production networks into new spaces. More specifically, we reveal the everyday tactics of resilience that manteros perform on the streets of Barcelona to resist and subvert controls over their livelihoods. Furthermore, we show how their unheralded work, instead of being marginal to GPNs facilitates the successful economic strategies of lead firms and extends the reach of GPNs themselves. This is demonstrated through an examination of manteros’ practices of sourcing, selling and adapting goods and the ways they collaborate with each other. We also show how they seek to challenge the processes through which they are adversely in

FAQs

Why does the paper argue that GPN analysis underestimates labour?

GPN analysis has renewed attention to labour but focuses mainly on formal waged work, giving insufficient attention to precarious self-employed and own-account workers who are often most vulnerable.

What do the authors study in Barcelona?

The paper examines the everyday practices of migrant street peddlers (‘manteros’) and how they interact with clothing and footwear GPNs while sourcing, producing, branding, and retailing goods.

How do manteros influence GPNs, according to the paper?

Their practices enable simultaneous inclusion and exclusion at the margins of GPNs; they adopt agentive strategies that help re-articulate social, economic and political marginalization and extend production networks into new spaces.

Sep 11, 2026

Upload by Hazel